Workshop Description:
I attended the workshop “Five Easy Steps to Effective Peer Instruction,” led by Bennet Goldberg at the CCTI on May 11, 2017 to satisfy core competency #2. At the workshop, Dr. Goldberg gave an informative presentation on the use of clickers in the classroom and the ways they can provide opportunities for peer instruction. Peer instruction, which allows for student engagement and interactivity, also makes it possible for the professor to learn what aspects of her lecture may need to be explained more in-depth.
Artifact and Rationale:
Dr. Goldberg’s handout, in which breakout groups were able to practice implementing clicker questions and peer instruction, was extremely helpful as a hands-on exercise. As I worked through the steps with my peers, I learned that clicker questions are not just to make students are paying attention. Rather, they should be implemented at particular points in a lecture, specifically according to Bloom’s Taxonomy. When clicker questions are created with care, students question and debate information at critical moments in the lecture. Further, the professor is able to analyze whether or not the way she has explained or demonstrated a topic was effective. I also found it interesting that Dr. Goldberg’s exercise explained that clicker questions do not simply need to be used to test knowledge/facts. Instead, they can also be used to encourage students to synthesize course material or exercise a particular skill.
Reflection:
As a historian and an individual who has taken many undergraduate history courses, the use of clicker questions in the classroom was a completely new concept to me. I appreciated that Dr. Goldberg’s exercise allowed the participants to work through clicker questions through our own disciplines, making it possible to reflect on when and where they could be the most useful for student learning.
Dr. Goldberg showed us the clicker questions as a form of peer instruction. I would like to know more about other ways that peer instruction can be implemented to create an effective learning environment. I wonder if, in history, more hands-on class assignments could motivate students to interact in similar ways, such as group primary source analysis or practicing research methods.
Overall, the most important concept that I learned from this session was that peer instruction can greatly facilitate student learning. While I may never use clickers in my own classroom, I know that getting students talking with one another, exchanging ideas, and debating course material is a significant way for them to learn.